"Dear Rolf Harrer,
I am a person you don't know. A man you've never met...But you are someone who occupies my mind...and my heart...in this distant land where I've gone. If you can imagine a hidden place, tucked safely away from the world...concealed by walls of high, snow-capped mountains...a place rich with all the strange beauty of your night-time dreams...Then you know where I am."
"In the country where I'm travelling - Tibet - people believe if they walk long distances to holy places...it purifies the bad deeds they've committed...They believe the more difficult the journey, the greater the depth of purification."
"...In this place where time stands still, it seems that everything is moving..including me. I can't say I know where I'm going. Nor whether my bad deeds can be purified...there are so many things I've done which I regret. But when I come to a full stop, I hope you will understand that the distance between us is not as great as it seems...
With deep affection,
your father...
Heinrich Harrer."
This is from the movie-'Seven Years in Tibet'(based on an autobiographical book with the same title written by the person on whom the movie is based.) A brief gist of the plot:-Austrians Heinrich Harrer (played by Brad Pitt) and Peter Aufschnaiter(played by David Thewlis) are mountaineering in British India in an area that is now Pakistan. When World War II begins in 1939, their German citizenship results in their imprisonment by the British in a POW camp in Dehradun in the Himalayan foothills, in the present-day Indian state of Uttarakhand. At that time Harrer's pregnant wife, Ingrid, sends him divorce papers from Austria.The letter also states that when their son is old enough,Ingrid will tell him that his father got lost in the Himalayas and died.In 1944, Harrer and Aufschnaiter escape the prison, and cross the border into Tibet, traversing the treacherous high plateau. While in Tibet, after initially being ordered to return to India, they are welcomed at the holy city of Lhasa, and become absorbed into an unfamiliar way of life. Harrer is introduced to the 14th Dalai Lama, who is still a boy, and becomes one of his tutors. During their time together, Heinrich becomes a close friend to the young spiritual leader. Harrer and Aufschnaiter stay in the country until the Chinese military campaign in 1950.
When Heinrich Harrer was missing his son while on his expedition,Peter Aufschnaiter suggested to him that he should write a letter to his son.It was during that time that Heinrich Harrer wrote this letter to his son.